I’ve Died And Gone to Library Heaven!

: Image by bigoteetoe via Flickr

The Internet Archive – Universal access to all knowledge…I just have to share this with you.

Felt just like a kid as I applied for my virtual library card, then spent the better part of two hours discovering and reading old books that have been scanned into the archive. Besides books, this coolest of places on the Internet has a whole array of media types that include:

The Wayback Machine: type in a web address and it takes you back to old archived dates of the pages. Oh my gosh I found old websites that I created and are long gone.
Moving Images: animation, sports, news – you name it you’ll find it archived one way or another.
Audio: think podcasts, music, news…they even have a special Grateful Dead archive of files.
Plus so much more – you have to see it to believe it.

In December, 2009 the Library of Congress announced a project undertaking to mass digitize brittle books. “Almost 60,000 are available now and more are scanned every day. These books are in the public domain and come with no restrictions on their use. Feel free to harvest, index, investigate, and re-use.” ~Forum Announcement

Sparked by all of this information at my fingertips, I’m looking forward to researching and finding new discoveries! Do you have a virtual library card yet? Here’s the link – Internet Archive – see ya in the food and cooking aisle